Ida - "Dream Date"

In grade five, I manipulated a classmate of mine into breaking up with his girlfriend, on whom I had a crush. That same day (where did I get the gall?), I asked her out over the phone and she said yes. I remember bursting out of my house (a bloated and cheesy romantic, at the age of ten) and jumping off my porch and into the street at twilight. Where was I off to? To buy candy? I was - I'm almost embarrassed enough not to tell you - singing "I Feel Good."

The first time I heard Ida I was in grade ten and a friend of mine lent me Brian Eno's Another Green World. That album was entirely unlike anything I'd heard before and I fell in love with the new sounds and the sad otherworldly melodies. That same day another friend of mine played me a song she was listening to on her Walkman. It was Ida's cover of Eno's Golden Hours. An intimate cover, true to the original, but understandably, with a more contemporary indie flavour. I couldn't believe the serendipity. Nor could I comprehend how lucky I was to have such cool friends.

My love affair with Ida essentially ended after that day. Most of their other songs I find boring, samey. No peaks. No valleys. Just pretty. And dull.

But this song is a perfect statement of the kind of unabashed optimism, excitement and anticipation, that comes with innocent, unskeptical new love. The feeling I had on that day in grade five (perhaps without the grisly cloakroom machinations).

The guitars, the ebow, the jaunty bass, the eager drums - they all indicate optimism; wide open-eyes and a dumb-grin. Like a distracted walk (your joy contained, channeled inwardly), oblivious to the world around you. Every new instrument is another thought of your love, a new reason to smile, to let your guard down. And finally at 3:08, the incongruously enthusiastic guitar solo is a laugh, or skip or some other ridiculous thing we do as our feelings outweigh our self-consciousness for just a moment, before we catch ourselves and turn it back inside.

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Say It Stranger - "Science Will Find You A Cure"

Here is some tenderness from Montreal's Say It Stranger, whose newest recording I had the pleasure of hearing this morning. I prefer the new songs to the ones on Demonstration of Skill, from which I culled "Science Will Find You A Cure", and so will save my figurative ink until the new songs have been properly mixed and I can post one of them.

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Yesterday I bicycled through one of those retractable gates used to stop cars at toll booths. The wood shattered as I biked through it. I never saw it coming. Is that normal?